Are you frustrated by your inability to find and hire qualified young employees? There are plenty of applicants out there, but the competition for qualified candidates is only going to get more intense as jobs become more demanding.

This is the second of three posts that report on how one company transformed itself to successfully recruit, develop and retain high-performing Millennials.

Tailored Label Products (TLP) is a small leading edge user of advanced digital printing technologies. CEO Mike Erwin knew his company had a chance to grow, but they needed a much more technically savvy workforce to take advantage of fast-changing innovations. Since there was no pool of experienced workers in the region, TLP had to begin competing seriously for millennial talent. Here are five things the firm does to more effectively recruit young workers.

Strive to Become a “Best Place to Work”

TLP recognizes the recruiting value in being known as a “best place to work.” They’ve been named one of the top places to work in the Milwaukee region six years in a row, based on independent employee satisfaction surveys. And nationally, in the printing industry, the firm has received a “Best of the Best” workplace award for seven years.

This “Best Workplace” status is just one thing that makes TLP attractive. “We put it on our recruiting materials, and ultimately people think we are harder to get into,” Erwin says. “Surprisingly, we have found that it actually creates an element of self-screening.”

Make it a goal to become a “Best Place to Work,” and even if you fall short, you’ll get valuable feedback about what your organization needs to work on to become a more attractive employer.

Turn Your Employees Into Recruiters

This approach can be controversial, but TLP encourages its current employees to think about friends or family members who might be a good fit at the company. TLP has an incentive scheme that provides a cash reward for bringing friends and family on board. There is an implied expectation, of course, that management won’t be happy if someone with a poor work ethic is recommended. The turnover rate from this “friends and family” approach is less than 5% over the past eight years. TLP has fathers and sons, fathers and daughters, and, in one case, three siblings working for the company. CEO Mike Erwin explains:

“Conventional wisdom from an HR perspective says this is fraught with issues. In reality it’s the opposite. Letting a fellow family member into our workplace appears to be a special employee benefit. We want our employee’s bragging about their workplace at holiday dinners and having more than one family member doing the bragging really establishes credibility.”

Promote Your Firm’s Technology Use

Millennials are highly sensitive to what technologies their employers are using. TLP recognized that it could gain an advantage in recruiting younger workers by promoting how it was progressively applying new technologies in its business. This approach not only increased the firm’s production capabilities, but it also attracts young employees who want to learn new skills.

In addition to adopting leading edge printing technologies, TLP also became an Apple-based company because art and graphic design are so central to its work. As a result, iPhones, iPads and touch screens now dominate work processes, making controls for complex printing processes more contemporary and easier to learn.

The firm has also embraced cloud computing and social networking technologies, including Google Docs, Salesforce.com, and LinkedIn, to facilitate rapid and ongoing communication. Rather than restrict or monitor an employee’s use of social media tools, TLP supports their impact as an extension of its daily business enterprise. Blogging and communication on most social platforms about the merits, activities and successes of the company are encouraged, both on and off hours.

Make Benefits Millennial Friendly

In addition to creating health insurance options and a retirement savings program appealing to young employees, as described a my previous post, TLP also has a vigorous program to promote healthy lifestyles. They pick up the tab on health club memberships and exercise gear, while also providing Fitbits to every employee. Over 80% of the company participates in the Fitbit program, which is free, as long as you achieve a certain amount of exercise each month. TLP also has fresh fruits and vegetables delivered by Pea Pod to each department in the plant, which employees are free to use for meals or healthy snacks.

Like many other progressive firms, TLP has built out a fitness room and showers for use by employees across all shifts. The fitness room also has fellow employees who are certified Yoga or Jazzercise instructors available to provide organized workouts. This is another employee engagement tool for those who want to offer “other” skills in the workplace.

Cross Train Continually to Promote Career Development

Most young employees want to be continually learning and developing new skills in their job. TLP promotes this learning intensity by using a practice they call “3×3 cross training”. This formal program aims to cross-train every employee in three job skills or functions. And the company’s goal is to have at least three employees trained to step into each job or function.

Cross training not only reduces monotony for young employees who might have mastered one job, but it also gives them a chance to develop new skills and discover unexpected interests in other roles. This reduces concerns about “Where do I go from here?”

Every job at TLP has three levels of documented proficiency and the goal is to get every employee “very proficient” in at least three roles. To keep individuals accountable for learning new skills, management regularly publishes the progress employees are making towards proficiency in new areas. Erwin explains:

“The benefit in a small business is employees are thinking ‘I can learn more, be more valuable, and be paid more. They’re willing to invest in me and I’m not bored and pigeon-holed in one job.’

Where employees can move is always a challenge in a small company, but cross training is a good tool for keeping engagement high. It gives employees more ideas of how their careers could progress at TLP.”

ROI of Improved Recruiting

Since TLP began aggressively recruiting young workers at the start of the Great Recession, the company’s revenues have grown 400%. Millennials were only 10% of the firm’s workforce at that time. Today they’re at least 50% and turnover is under 5% annually. TLP’s bet that it could successfully hire productive millennial talent has paid off handsomely. And there’s one unexpected benefit, Erwin notes:

We have customers come through the plant who see the energy and diversity, and they say, ‘I can see why this is a Best Place to Work.’ People want to do business with a highly engaged workplace.

Use the TLP experience as a checklist of things you could be doing differently to improve your recruiting practices. And contact me if you want to explore other resources for recruiting and retaining your next generation workforce.